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Abstract: The Problem and Method in Social Psychology

Ellsworth Faris

If social psychology be defined as the subjective aspect of culture the two
main problems are: (1) the analysis of the undivided whole of behavior into the
constituent components of culture and physiology; (2) the problem of the
mechanism involved in changing one attitude into another, which is the
theoretical aspect of all practical efforts to deal with social pathology. The
first of these problems is most difficult and the search for method still goes
on. There is no doubt of the fact of inheritance but there is great difficulty
in discovering its limits.

Several more or less conscious methods may be discovered by a careful reading
of current authors. Animal psychology offers relevant facts though the
fundamental differences in structure and the total absence of culture limit but
do not destroy its value. An uncritical archeology appealing to experience of
primitives also appears but more often than not this material is used as
explanation and not as concrete data. Modern ethnology with its monographic
method is accumulating a wealth of material for the social psychologist.
Abnormal psychology is a field whose value is increasingly apparent and when
stripped of preconceptions is destined to con-tribute even more in the future
than in the past.

All of these methods, however, are open to the criticism that the subject
matter of their science is not the material with which the social psychologist
is chiefly concerned. Light from all these is welcome but the real data must be
the actual events in the normal life of human beings. In the " Polish Peasant,"
by W. I. Thomas, is one instance of a method which must be widely used if our
problems find solution. Life histories of individuals whose cultural setting is
fully known must be studied with a patience and detail not hitherto attempted.
The social psychologist must also devote himself with great patience to finding
out what there is of scientific value to be had by comparing the works of all
the artists, but particularly the writers of biography and autobiography.

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